Frustrated with my child

[One_Girl]

We are doing clocks right now and have been for a few weeks, today was our last lesson. She has been doing them mostly independently until today, and today she decided that she wasn't up for them so she pretended to not know what she was doing. She took 45 minutes to complete 10 problems. I disengaged after 15 minutes and told her I knew she could do it so she finally started but then stopped at the last problem 6:30 and moaned for several minutes about not being able to do it. I finally pointed out that she needed to just do what she had done for the other ones and asked her why she was wasting her time when she could have been done and doing her other math (which she likes more). She buzzed through her other math in only a few minutes.

Does anyone else's kid do this? How do you help them through it faster? I would have given her time off, but she faked being sick on Monday and I sense a pattern coming and I don't want to encourage it. I also want her to learn clocks and until today she has seemed to want to learn them too. My patience is a lot thin right now so that may have had something to do with it.

[Lillian J]

This same question comes up a lot, and the majority of answers are usually to adjust the plans rather than to try to adjust the child.

But first of all, you didn't mention how old she is, but if she's younger than seven, she may be not ready for any lessons. And I should probably first clarify that I'm not one who feels lessons are generally the best way to provide learning - I always found that keeping things a lot less formal and structured worked a lot better. The first thing that came to my mind in this particular instance was that knowledge of clocks doesn't really take a series of lessons - it's just one of those natural things around the house, like using a DVD player or loading and starting a dishwasher, that there are lots of reasons to refer to and learn in natural ongoing ways. Many children never have a lesson about clocks, but never have a problem learning all about them. I think that if a child fakes illness in order to avoid homeschooling experiences, the lesson expectations are probably not a good fit for that child. It might also be that maybe learning is being approached as a work time or chore time rather than just being a number of things that are introduced as interesting and useful or fun things to learn.

Here are a couple of threads that may be helpful:
Frustrated that I won't succeed at teaching
I can't do this anymore!
Resistance!
Fiercely independent - struggles
Frustrated with 6 yr. old DD

I think it could be very helpful to take a spring break and just have some healing fun together that break the tension that's been building up. That could even bring some important insights in ways you least expect about how to proceed later.

- Lillian

[crunchy_mama]

Sounds like everybody needs a break to me. Then perhaps approaching it a different way that is something she is intested in. We haven't done formal lessons on clocks but ds is very interested in how long this or that takes or when we are doing this or that so we have been "working" on time in that fashion.

[shoefairy3]

defintetely for teaching time, we dont use a workbook, just practice telling time on analog and digital clocks throughout the day

[One_Girl]

Thanks for the feedback. She is seven and enjoys using worksheets in general. I actually bought the workbook because she wanted it, but I think that she was tired of learning about clocks so we are moving on and I will touch on them whenever I remember to have her tell me what time it is. I was not in a good mood this morning and of course today was the day when she was ready for a change that I didn't feel like facilitating.

I don't think she needs a break because she did everything else with enthusiasm in a very quick manner. She frequently fakes illness even on weekends when we aren't going to do anything because she likes to have movie days and we only have unlimited tv time when she is very ill. I have thought about letting her have more screen time, but I really don't feel comfortable with her watching tv a lot. She typically miraculously recovers when I don't let her watch a movie, but she was very into reading on Monday so she stayed "ill" to read. I was fine with that, sometimes even I need a day to just read. I think she was probably tired of the clocks on Monday but she held out until today. She will go to great lengths to avoid boredom and usually I am much better about picking up on her cues and helping her do so. I haven't been feeling well lately so I haven't stayed as in tune with her as I should be.